``Most of these programmes would be new even to the US and perhaps would not be aired in other Asian countries,'' said AXN CEO James Bucklarewicz in a media conference. India is perceived to have good potential, having the largest English speaking population after the US and the UK.

According to statistics, India constitutes a viewership of 10.5 million homes, which amount to half of its total viewership of 22 million across continents.

As the Indian audience preferred action series, movies and sports there would be more original programming in these areas. A slew of action series is to be launched as also special sports such as mountain climbing etc.

The market research has enabled some AXN themes such as Friday Classics, Saturday premier and Sunday conversations with AXN heroes. More genres will be introduced in the future. Studies have also shown that AXN animation was not popular with Indians though most popular with Taiwanese. This has been withdrawn and more movies have been brought in. However Bucklarewicz declined to reveal the investments in store, apart from saying that it would take 4.5 to 5 years to break even.

AXN is distributed in the country by Sony Entertainment Television. AXN General Manager Achal Mehra said that the returns were being planned more from advertisements rather than subscriptions. At present, cable operators are being charged around Rs 2 to Rs 3.50 per home.

The channel, which planned to bring about a brand awareness in the first year, made it a policy to be very friendly with cable operators to get the maximum response from them. This move has paid off as the ratings have gone up dramatically in the last few months. As per A C Nielson's record, the channel is neck to neck with Star movies in the country, but in some places like Chennai it is far ahead. In Chennai, AXN is the most popular English channel and gets half the ratings of Sun TV. The ratings stand around 8 points occassionally going to 10. This is followed by other places like Calcutta, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana etc.